'My School' and Others: Segregation and White Flight
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May 2011 ‘My School’ and others: Segregation and white flight Christina Ho, University of Technology, Sydney Talk to enough parents about choosing schools for their kids, and sooner or later, you’ll hear one express concern about the local public school having ‘too many Asians’, or Lebanese, or Muslims, or Aborigines. The minority groups change, but there is a growing unofficial creed among many Australian parents that a ‘good school’ for their children is one where minorities are in the minority. And public schools are increasingly viewed as ghettoes, whether they are the disadvantaged schools of the poorer suburbs, or the high achieving selective schools that top all the league tables. Ethnic concentration and ‘white flight’ from public schools surface sporadically in Australian public debate, often focused particularly on public schools in rural areas and those in disadvantaged suburbs, which, it is argued, are being abandoned by Whites (for example, Bonnor & Caro 2007; Patty 2008; McDougall 2009). The recent release of the official My School 2.0 website (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority 2011a) provides the most comprehensive data ever on the cultural diversity levels of all schools in Australia. These statistics show a clear pattern of cultural polarisation in schools across the board, including in wealthy elite suburbs, and suggest that Anglo-Australians may indeed have abandoned public schools in many areas. The My School website reports on the percentages of students that come from language backgrounds other than English (LBOTE) for each school. These statistics are based on enrolment data provided by schools and education authorities (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority 2011b). Language background other than English is a standard measure of cultural diversity in Australia, and unlike birthplace, captures second and subsequent generation migrants who were not born overseas, but are still members of a cultural minority. It is not a perfect measure, though, as it excludes cultural minorities who are primarily English-speaking. My analysis of the My School data focuses on secondary schools in metropolitan Sydney, and the statistics show a Statistics show a clear marked split between public and private schools. Across pattern of cultural Sydney, more than half (52 per cent) of public school students polarisation are from LBOTE, while for Independent schools, the figure is in schools. just 22 per cent. Catholic schools come in between at 37 per cent. (Independent schools comprise Christian and non- denominational schools, but exclude specialist schools (for children with disabilities) and the small number of schools catering for minority populations (Islamic, Jewish, Coptic Orthodox and bilingual schools).) At the elite level, among schools that record the strongest performances in the Higher School Certificate (HSC), the polarisation is particularly marked. For example, among the top 50 Sydney schools in the 2010 HSC examination, sixteen private schools (or 72 per cent of all private schools) have less than 20 per cent of students from a language background other than English. Table 1 shows the full list of these schools, and also demonstrates that the cultural diversity levels in schools are often much lower than that of the suburbs in which they are located. Comparing these private schools with their local public counterparts underscores the yawning gap between the two sectors. For instance, while St Ignatius College in Lane Cove on Sydney’s wealthy North Shore has just eight per cent of its students from a language background other than English, as listed below, the figure for nearby Hunters Hill High School is 22 per cent, while another nearby local school, Chatswood High School, has 67 per cent from a LBOTE (all figures are from the My School website). Taking other examples from the North Shore, Queenwood School in Mosman, with 10 per cent LBOTE, contrasts with Mosman High at 26 per cent. Similarly Ravenswood’s thirteen per cent LBOTE contrasts dramatically with nearby Killara High’s 45 per cent and St Ives High’s 49 per cent. The pattern is clear: within these wealthy Sydney suburbs, public schools routinely educate a much higher proportion of migrant-background students than do private schools. Table 1: Percentage from language backgrounds other than English, selected schools and suburbs in Sydney % LBOTE % LBOTE of school of suburb* Wenona School, North Sydney 0 23 Kambala, Rose Bay 5 19 St Ignatius College, Lane Cove 8 20 SHORE – Sydney Church of England Grammar School, 9 23 North Sydney Queenwood School for Girls, Mosman 10 11 Loreto, Normanhurst 10 18 SCEGGS, Darlinghurst 12 18 Ravenswood School for Girls, Gordon 13 27 Ascham School, Edgecliff 14 18 Roseville College 14 16 Loreto, Kirribilli 14 16 St Catherine’s School, Waverley 14 20 Brigidine College, St Ives 14 17 Cranbrook School, Bellevue Hill 15 25 Reddam House, North Bondi 19 28 Barker College, Hornsby 16 38 Sources: My School website and ABS 2006 Census community profiles. * These figures are based on percentages of Census respondents who reported speaking a language other than English at home. Again, this is a somewhat rough measure of cultural diversity which does not take into consideration the age profile of residents, but nevertheless, it is a standard measure of diversity in Australia. The association between public schools and migrant students is even stronger when we look at public academically-selective schools, which are, in almost all cases, overwhelmingly dominated by students from a language background other than English, as Table 2 shows. How are we to understand this dramatic cultural polarisation between public and private schools in Sydney? Obviously there are no official culturally-discriminatory policies in either sector. Entry into public selective schools is determined by the Selective High School Placement Test, which, although highly competitive, is open to any applicant. Private schools, on top of hefty school fees, often have a waiting list, and sometimes give priority to children of Old Boys and Girls. This may sometimes make it more difficult for children of migrants to gain entry. Overall though, it would appear that, to some extent, families are self-segregating on the basis of cultural background. Private schools, on top Migrant families are opting for the public system, which of hefty school fees, seems understandable given the outstanding academic often have a waiting outcomes achieved by selective schools, coupled with the list. exorbitant fees of private schools. Many Asian migrant families in particular are famously anxious about their children’s academic performance, most sensationally illustrated by Amy Chua’s bestselling book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), which articulates a ‘Chinese’ model of parenting that allegedly produces superior results in terms of children’s academic and other outcomes. I am not able to discuss Chua’s controversial claims about ‘Chinese’ parenting, except to say that in many cases, strong parental attention to academic performance is no doubt an attempt to ensure that the risk of migration pays off. The upshot is that migrant parents may be less willing to pay for superior grounds, facilities and other private school attractions, even when they can afford to do so. Anglo- Australians’ shunning of public selective schools is less explicable, particularly among those families with talented children who might achieve the required standard on the selective schools test. The ‘white flight’ from these schools must partly reflect an unwillingness to send children to schools dominated by migrant-background children, which simply further entrenches this domination. Table 2: Percentage of students from language backgrounds other than English, top 10 selective schools in NSW (in order of HSC rank) % LBOTE James Ruse Agricultural High School 97 North Sydney Girls High School 93 Hornsby Girls High School 86 Baulkham Hills High School 92 Sydney Girls High School 88 Sydney Boys High School 91 Northern Beaches Secondary College Manly Campus 39 North Sydney Boys High School 90 Fort Street High School 81 Normanhurst Boys High School 80 St George Girls High School 90 Source: My School website Jakubowicz argues that at its heart, this phenomenon ‘represents a withdrawal from intercultural interaction, into monocultural isolation with only carefully controlled interactions with “Others”’ (2009, p. 4). He describes a similar trend among some migrant families, increasingly opting for religiously and culturally defined schooling. As a result, by the mid-2000s, Jakubowicz suggests, ‘some of the great tradition of public education as the beachhead for intercultural engagement had begun to come unstuck’ (2009, p. 4). And of course, this cultural polarisation is not just happening at the elite level. In some of the poorer suburbs of Sydney, public schools also appear to have been abandoned by Anglo-Australians. Table 3 shows the schools with the highest proportions of students from LBOTE, all of which are located in Western Sydney. And while these schools are located in suburbs where migrants are concentrated, the school communities are disproportionately migrant-dominated. In 2000, the NSW districts with the highest percentages of students from non-English speaking backgrounds in public Public schools appear schools were Granville and Fairfield, but then, the figures to have been were 81 per cent and 75 per cent LBOTE, respectively (NSW abandoned by Anglo- Department of Education and Training 2000). Unlike today, Australians. there were no areas with 90 per cent or more LBOTE. So in the last decade there has been a marked ethnic consolidation in these schools. So where are Anglo-Australian children going to school in these areas? In the central Western corridor running from Parramatta through Auburn to Bankstown, the private schools all have lower LBOTE levels than do their public counterparts, although the schools with the lowest levels still have approximately half their students from LBOTE. Examples include Our Lady of Mercy College, Parramatta (49 per cent), St Euphemia College, Bankstown (54 per cent) and Condell Park Christian School (56 per cent).